


What Isn't There

by NachoDiablo



Series: Tales from the Crypt [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Implied Necrophilia, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NachoDiablo/pseuds/NachoDiablo
Summary: Sirius has changed, but Remus still loves him.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Tales from the Crypt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661986
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42
Collections: Nah, RS Fireside Tales Vol.2





	What Isn't There

**Author's Note:**

> Written for RS Fireside Tales. 
> 
> Prompt: Whiteness of moonlight builds a house that is not there. - Kathleen Raine
> 
> Thanks to the Wiz for the beta read.

Whiteness of moonlight builds a house that is not there.

― Kathleen Raine

~

“I’ve changed.”

Remus smiled as he rested a hand on Sirius’ chest. The waxing moon cast weak strands of light across his knuckles, bouncing off the cracked joints. “We’ve both changed,” he replied. “It’s what happens when time passes, you see.”

Sirius chuckled. “Smart arse.” His face was shrouded in shadow, but Remus had long since memorized every curve and angle of the smirk he knew was there.

“I don’t look the way I used to,” Sirius mused. “Lost my boyish good looks, I suppose.”

Remus hummed as his fingers traced across Sirius’ chest. It was smooth now, devoid of the sparse curls that had been there in their twenties. “I think you’re beautiful.”

“Sap.”

“I mean it.” Remus smiled as his fingers drifted upwards to let his palm rest against Sirius’ heart. “You always look gorgeous to me. Perfect.”

Sirius didn’t speak for a long while. They lay together on the bed, entwined in the rough cotton sheets. A breeze slipped through the crack in the window, sending a chill across Remus’ arm. He shivered as the flesh prickled into goosebumps. A fresh warming charm was long overdue. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Remus replied. He frowned. A cloud had been hovering over the bottom of the moon, but it had moved, allowing a beam of light to brush Sirius’ cheeks. It did something odd to Sirius’ hair, added a twinge of gold that Remus didn’t remember.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled to himself. Sirius didn’t reply as Remus curled himself closer.

“No matter how you change, Sirius, I’ll always love you.” 

~

Aberforth’s scowl did not waver as Hestia Jones made her way over, but some of the tension left his shoulders. Neither of them bothered with small talk as Hestia sat down at the bar. Aberforth poured two shots of Firewhisky; one was down his throat before the other had slid across the bar into Hestia’s hand. Once Hestia’s shot was gone, she raised one eyebrow at him, still silent.

Aberforth picked up a dirty rag and began polishing a stain on the bar that’d been there for decades. “You’ve got to do something about Lupin.”

Hestia’s other eyebrow rose to meet its twin. “About what, specifically?”

The stain on the bar gleamed in defiance of Aberforth’s glare. “Listen,” he muttered. “Whatever a person does to get through their grief is none of my damn business. But Lupin’s been holed up in his room for two days now, and stasis charms can only do so much.”

Hestia rolled her eyes as she pushed her shot glass across the bar. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her disinterested tone might have fooled Aberforth, had he not noticed the way her fingers tightened around the glass. “I’m talking about Lupin,” he hissed through gritted teeth, “shacking up in my pub with Black.”

“What?” Genuine confusion flashed across Hestia’s face. “Which Black?”

“The fuck do you mean, which Black? The same Black he’s always been fucking.”

Hestia glanced up at the ceiling, as though she could peer through the floor and see Lupin’s desperate depravity. “Sirius? Sirius is gone.”

“I bloody well know that.” Aberforth sent the Firewhisky bottle to fill their glasses with a wordless spell.

“What d’you mean then, has he got one of those dolls that Dung’s cousin crafts up?”

The rag in Aberforth’s hand pressed harder against the aged countertop. The stain paid no mind. “No. I’m telling you, it’s the  _ same _ Black. Or at least the same body.” 

He didn’t want to look up at Hestia, didn’t want to think about the shrouded figure he’d seen Lupin carry up the stairs, or the greying hand that’d come loose from the folds and banged against the bannister, lifeless as a mouldering cut of meat falling to the bottom of the bin.

But he had to make sure she understood him. He raised his eyes to meet hers; prepared to see disgust in her expression, maybe even some pity. 

The horror, however, took him aback.

A yellow pallor dulled her olive complexion; her eyes had widened into saucers. Firewhisky sloshed over the side of her glass as she raised it to her lips with a trembling hand. She took it down, then grabbed Aberforth’s glass and downed that one as well.

“I’m telling  _ you,” _ she said eventually, “that Sirius is  _ gone. _ He fell behind the veil. There  _ is _ no body. Not  _ his, _ anyway. There never was.”


End file.
